When Raleigh was ready to attempt the first permanent English colony in the New World, he sent the 25-year-old Hariot along as a historian and surveyor. The group of 109 Englishmen and two natives sailed from England April 9, 1585, under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. They arrived at what is now North Carolina's Pamlico Sound on June 26, and settled on Roanoke Island. Grenville stayed two months before returning to England, leaving Ralph Lane as the colony's governor. During the year the colonists remained on Roanoke Island, Hariot wrote The Chronicle or Discourse of Virginia according to the course of the times, a detailed survey of area's natural resources and native inhabitants. . . Hariot's Briefe and True Report is an abstract of his Chronicle. It was first published privately in 1588 . . .

There is an herbe which is sowed a part by it selfe & is called by the inhabitants vppówoc. . The Spaniardes generally call it Tobacco. . . We ourselues during the time we were there vsed to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne . . .

On a hot July day in 1587, 117 men, women, and children set foot on a New World. Their benefactor, Sir Walter Raleigh, had long dreamed of a permanent settlement, and finally, despite the threat of war with Spain, Queen Elizabeth I had consented.

The "most agreeable and pleasant smoke" for everyone, even "delicate women," was marketed by a St. Louis company about 20 years after the end of the Civil War. It seemed it was good for almost anything that ailed you. "Cocarettes" cigarettes were "not injurious" and made of "the finest sun-cured Virginia tobacco" and "the exact proportion" of genuine Bolivian coca leaf, all packaged in the best rice paper available.

Friend Ford . . . The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed, is called "Acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes.

1938-1964: Suppressing the Dangers of Tobacco--an Old Media Tradition (03/03/97) How did the media react when Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins reported in the May, 1938 Scientific American that "the smoking of tobacco was associated definitely with an impairment of life duration and the amount or degree of this impairment increased as the habitual amount of smoking increased?" Why, they didn't, of course. As Harold Ickes said on-air at the time, "I wonder if that is because the tobacco companies are such large advertisers." A short, punchy article by Randolph T. Holhut, editor of the George Seldes Reader.

1991: The AFCO Case Australian Federal Court's appraisal of ETS data extant in 1986: Active smokers are likely to be misled or deceived . . . into believing that their smoking does not prejudice the health of non-smokers, particularly children.